Faces of the News: January 26, 2025
Isidro Ungab
The senior Davao lawmaker has raised the biggest legal challenge so far to the already controversial 2025 General Appropriations Act (GAA). In a podcast with former President Rodrigo Duterte on Jan. 18, Ungab said he had discovered several “blanks” in the bicameral conference committee report that eventually became the national budget law.
For Duterte, this made the national budget “invalid” as it was akin to handing President Marcos a blank check. Marcos later dismissed Duterte’s claim as a lie.
Three other lawmakers, however, later confirmed that they also received a bicam copy that had blanks, most of them related to the programs of the Department of Agriculture.
Sought for comment, public budget expert Zy-za Suzara said the issue may not just about the blanks themselves but who later filled them up and how, since it appeared that the blanks were still there in the copy that both chambers of Congress ratified.
Ungab later spoke of his intention to challenge the 2025 GAA law before the Supreme Court, in addition to the petitions being planned by other critics. —KRIXIA SUBINGSUBING
Gordon Ramsay
Gordon Ramsay visited the Philippines for the first time earlier this week. “I’m so excited to be here,” he told the Inquirer.
The celebrity chef is known for his popular television shows (“Kitchen Nightmares,” “Hell’s Kitchen,” “MasterChef US”) and restaurants around the globe, including Gordon Ramsay Bar & Grill which opened at Newport World Resorts last year.
It was hectic week for Ramsay, who spent time with his local kitchen staff, came out to personally surprise diners, judged a halo-halo showdown, explored Farmers Market in Cubao, and faced a packed crowd at Newport Performing Arts Theater.
Among the audince were student chefs from different schools—“the future of the Filipino culinary industry.” Ramsay disclosed plans to open more restaurants in the country, including “maybe a Hell’s Kitchen.” And what can he say about Filipino food? “It’s on the cusp of the recognition it deserves. It’s the culture, the complexity, the regional divisions of the Philippines. It’s incredible. It’s quite unique. Yeah, I’ve been a big fan for a long time.” —PAM PASTOR
Risa Hontiveros
It must have felt like deja vu for Sen. Risa Hontiveros, who last week pushed back against religious conservative groups for allegedly spreading ‘’disinformation’’ about a bill she had filed to curb teenage pregnancies in the country.
Criticisms hurled at Senate Bill (SB) No. 1979, or the proposed Prevention of Adolescent Pregnancy Act, were similar to those raised against the Reproductive Health Law, which Hontiveros had championed as Akbayan party list representative during the Benigno Aquino administration.
She called out former Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno (who once declared that combating fake news is a “personal fight for our very souls”) and the group Project Dalisay over the way they attacked her bill.
Contrary to Sereno’s claim that the measure promotes “masturbation” and “hypersexuality,” Hontiveros said, these concepts were nowhere to be found in the text of SB 1979.
To appease the critics and after seven of her Senate colleagues withdrew their signatures from the committee report on the bill, Hontiveros immediately filed a revised version. —MARLON RAMOS
Donald Trump
Donald Trump hit the ground running even before assuming power as the 47th president of the United States. Days before his Jan. 20 inaugural, he threatened tariffs on imports— particularly from China, Mexico and Canada—and urged a stop to wars in Ukraine and Gaza.
And the world listened. For one, Trump warned that “all hell will break out” in the Middle East if the Hamas hostages were not released before his inauguration.
Then, a day before he took his oath of office for his second nonconsecutive term, Israel and Hamas signed a truce and the first three Israeli hostages were back home with their families.
On his Day 1 in office, Trump rescinded 78 executive orders by former President Joe Biden and issued a flurry of his own— including an order withdrawing the United States from the Paris climate accord. As promised, he also kicked off a massive crackdown on illegal migrants.
Later speaking remotely at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Trump outlined his plans and goals—all aimed, as his mantra goes, at “making America great again.” —PRESS RELEASE
Mariann Budde
Episcopal Right Rev. Mariann Budde knew that, following the inauguration of Donald Trump as US President, her religious service should be about uniting the nation after a “divisive election season”.
She also believed that “We can’t paint whole groups of people in one broad stroke. That’s the stuff of political campaigning.”
Trump, after all, was already in position to run the country, she said. To stress her message at the inaugural service, Budde implored the new President “to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now”, referring to members of the LGBTQ+ community and illegal migrants facing deportation by the new chief executive.
It was in apparent response to some of Trump’s first directives to dismantle race and gender programs that he said “discriminated” particularly against white men. He also started fulfilling a campaign promise to crack down on illegal migrants, especially “criminals” who had slipped into the country.
As a result, Budde said, gay, lesbian and transgender children were now “fearing for their lives.” Later asked about Budde’s sermon, Trump said: “I don’t think it was a good service.” —PRESS RELEASE
